as small as a world and as large as alone, Has anyone ever approached you about doing a tv...

3:44pm June 26, 2014

sirandmaster asked: Has anyone ever approached you about doing a tv series or movies based on your Young Wizards books?

dduane:

Sure; they’ve been optioned a number of times.

Options, of course, are no guarantee of anything getting made. What they all too often turn into is a scenario in which the optioner wanders around the (Hollywood) landscape taking meetings with studio executives and using their temporary possession of your creative output to raise his (or her or their) own profile.

After three or four episodes of this kind of thing over a number of years I decided not to permit it any longer. As a result my agents now refuse to let anyone option the material who does not agree up front to the understanding that I will be very hands-on about any YW screen work, be it feature or miniseries or other serial drama, that I will be writing first draft of any screen material, and that I will exercise script veto over subsequent rewrites. Since I have ample screen credential of my own — a fair amount of serial drama, a couple of miniseries, a couple of features, all of which did well enough — there is no way that anyone can reasonably refuse this if they really want to bring YW to the screen.

Over the past several years there have been approaches from several studios who were willing to agree to my terms, but all of these deals came undone — normally because of personnel moving on from the studios / production companies in question. (This kind of event all too routinely ends in the projects / acquisitions of the departed person being tossed into the trash, as everyone left behind at the company gets busy “proving” that the person who left wasn’t worth keeping anyway.) That said: I’m presently in discussions with another production entity regarding the YW books. It’s far too soon to say anything about this, but the general atmosphere is encouraging.

…And that and $2.50 or so will get you a ride on the subway. :) It’s OK, though. I’m in no rush about this. The books have waited thirty years to make it to the screen: they can wait a few longer for the opportunity to get it right. (Because who wants to make another Eragon or The Dark Is Rising? Slow and steady wins the race.)